Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

When one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers appeared on Sixty Minutes and revealed his desire to question Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld along with other important American figures associated with formulating Iraq policy, a reality instinct told you that this objective would never achieve fruition.

An interesting aspect of the interview related to the phraseology of the lawyer, whose comment that he would "like to" have the opportunity to interrogate Rumsfeld and other U.S. policymakers evidenced a realistic belief that this relished expectation would never be allowed to occur.

The Cheney-Bush Consortium manipulated circumstances so that Saddam Hussein would occupy the same position that Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega had after his capture and arrest in Panama City.  Noriega, who for years had been a Central Intelligence Agency asset, including a pivotal period when George H. W. Bush served as Director, was captured by then President Bush.  

Noriega expressed a strong desire to tell what he knew about Bush and his association with the man who overthrew him as Panama's dictator.  Instead he was promptly hustled in and out of a Miami federal court without receiving that opportunity.  

Bush and others cited Noriega's involvement in the international drug network as a reason for deposing him.  

General Noriega's drug involvement was well known to knowledgeable world scene observers, but the question many of them asked was, "Why arrest Noriega for this reason when he was involved with the international drug scene for years, including the period when he was a CIA asset?"  

Now we move from Bush 41 to Bush 43 and a different dictator with a record of complicity and support of U.S. political authorities with the same result.  A key announcement in the entire Saddam Hussein post-capture scenario was that the Iraqis would try him and the World Court at The Hague would not.

A second key element in Operation Policy to Preserve Silence involved the alleged crimes for which Saddam Hussein would be charged.  Despite a widespread pattern of killing during Saddam's regime he was officially tried for executing 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail in 1982 after a foiled attempt on the brutal dictator and his entourage.

What about the Kurds of the northern provinces?  As a matter of fact the genocide perpetrated against them extended well beyond the hundreds and into the thousands.  Remember that poison gas was used on the Kurds?  Who helped supply the technology that helped generate the weapons?    

Who can forget the picture of a smiling Donald Rumsfeld sitting in Saddam Hussein's office in 1983 while Kurds were being brutally murdered with the assistance of tools of potential destruction supplied by the Reagan Administration.  

Remember Ronald Reagan?  He was president then.  He was the world leader who referred to the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire.  Were we really in a position to call names?

At one point George Bush 41 urged the Kurds to rise up against Saddam in concert with our actions to drive him out of Kuwait.  When they responded and were brutally murdered following the Gulf War what happened when they sought U.S. help?  

George Bush the Elder turned a deaf ear.  The reason was that the oil rich Saudi regime whose support he has so ardently cultivated as president and continues to deal with as a leading player in the Carlyle Group expressed concern about coming to the defense of Shiites.

The Kurds were left to die.  When Cheney-Bush Consortium critics ask why nothing was done in the face of genocide apologists answer, "We had another enemy then.  Our enemy then was Iran."

The international law we helped write following World War Two allows for no exceptions to anti-genocide policy on the grounds of enemy or ally preferences.  Then again, what does international law have to do with the machinations of the Cheney-Bush Consortium?  

Do you see why genocide against the Kurdish population of Iraq was not included in the prosecution's particulars against Saddam Hussein?  Can you see why a trial at The Hague was ruled out in the face of differing evidentiary standards?

Remember that CIA assistance was provided in assisting Saddam Hussein's successful coup that installed him in power on the grounds that the then ruling Communist regime was detrimental to western interests.  

Does that policy decision seem familiar?  It should.  Look what happened in Afghanistan.  

A fervent desire to rid Afghanistan of a regime associated with the Evil Empire prompted us in that case to supply Stinger Missiles to a Taliban regime that included a major battlefield leader by the name of Osama bin Laden.  

In those days bin Laden was linked to the CIA, as General Manuel Noriega had been before him.  Yet we self-righteously point figures and define empires as evil.  

So there you have it; a result in Iraq consistent with preserving silence, holding fast so that a genie spreading truth and insight cannot not escape from a bottle with its lid tightly shut; a genie with the audacity to declare: "Let's have a thorough and independent investigation of links involving the United States and Saddam Hussein."